Telekom Austria is eyeing a hybrid bond issue of up to 800 million euros ($1.06 billion) to help finance major investments, Austrian magazine News reported, citing Chairman Rudolf Kemler.

In an interview published on Thursday, Kemler pointed to an Austrian auction of next-generation radio frequencies due in the second half of this year and the need to prolong existing frequency contracts.

"We presumably don't have (funds for this) in the Telekom group. That does not arise from current liquidity," he was quoted as saying.

Swedish telecoms incumbent TeliaSonera has beefed up its business in Kazakhstan with the $170 million acquisition of WiMax operator Alem Communications and purchase of a minority stake in KazTransCom, a backbone network operator, for a fee of $35 million.

The transactions will help to bolster the position of Kcell (Almaty, Kazakhstan), TeliaSonera’s Kazakh subsidiary, which recently completed an IPO in London and Kazakhstan.

Europe has fallen behind the United States in mobile telephone network development because its regulatory framework is fragmented and does not provide incentives for investment, the head of Norwegian telecoms group Telenor told Reuters.

European fourth-generation (4G) network frequencies are too expensive, the investment cost is high and operators, particularly in countries affected by drawn out recessions, lack the pricing power to make the investment worthwhile, Chief Executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas said in an interview.

Deutsche Telekom chief executive Rene Obermann has unexpectedly announced he will step down at the end of 2013 and be succeeded by finance director Timotheus Hoettges.

Hoettges, 50, said on Thursday he was not planning major changes to strategy and would continue Obermann's drive of investing in the United States and Germany as the firm battles to return to revenue growth against a tough economic backdrop.

"I have worked with Obermann for 12 years, and I don't expect to change a lot in the way that we do things," he told journalists during a conference call.

Sprint Corp promised to pay Clearwire Corp a $120 million breakup fee if its $2.2 billion purchase of roughly half of the smaller wireless service provider does not go ahead.

At the same time, Clearwire (Bellevue, USA) said on Tuesday it agreed to a "no-shop" provision, meaning it cannot seek other offers but could consider unsolicited offers.

Clearwire and Sprint (Overland Park, USA), its majority owner, announced details of their merger agreement in a regulatory filing the day after Sprint agreed buy out the rest of Clearwire for $2.97 per share.

In a statement quoted by Dow Jones Newswires, Telenet’s directors said “the current offer does not sufficiently reflect the value of the company and its prospects”. The statement went on to say the directors “would consider recommending an offer from LGI if it were made at a price between €39 and €40”.

Telefonica SA said on Tuesday it transferred about half of the shares of its Peruvian unit to its Latin American holding company in an internal deal worth $1.5 billion.

The move is part of a broader plan, which the Spanish telephony giant said this month it was considering, to list up to 15 percent of the firm that groups together its Latin American assets from a dozen countries.

The potential listing of the company, called Telefonica Latinoamerica Holding SL, could generate cash to pay down $7.8 billion in debt.

Residents of Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Inuvik are unfamiliar with the concept of choice in telecoms. While most Canadians witnessed the demise of the old-fashioned monopoly system about 15 years ago, those in the vast territories reached via the 867 area code have had to make do with a sole provider in the shape of NorthwesTel, a subsidiary of BCE.

Until now, that is. The launch of a new local phone service was this week announced by Iristel (Markham, Canada), promising consumers and businesses significantly lower fees than they currently pay, with no need to change numbers.

Clearwire Corp agreed to sell a roughly 50 percent stake for $2.2 billion to majority shareholder Sprint Nextel Corp, which would then have full ownership of spectrum that will help it offer high-speed wireless services.

The $2.97-per-share deal is only 7 cents per share higher than a bid many minority shareholders said was too low days before. Clearwire (Bellevue, USA) shares slid 9.8 percent to $3.04 in premarket trading.

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